Bloodless Roses
by Shadowhedgehog8
Summary: Col. Roy Mustang is assigned a mission to stay with an Ishbal village.  He is stuck doing his job, doing research on their culture and waiting for the Homonculi.  Inspired by The Book Theif, by Markus Zusak.  The story is narrated by Maes Hughes.
1. Chapter 1

Bloodless Roses

So please work with me because I know a got some things wrong and all that jazz, but I had to change some things to make the story work the way I wanted to. This is an interesting story plot I thought of, but I didn't watch Brotherhood yet, so don't tell me anything or get all up in my grill! Also, I sort of got the idea of the narrator and playing with word formation from The Book Thief, Markus Zusak. So if anyone can guess who the narrator is, I'd be impressed (maybe it won't be that hard to figure out.) But I'll give you one hint, it is a person from FMA.

~Part One of Part one

Several Jeeps sprint through the desert heading towards Ishbal. The car at the front of the pack trips over a rock and jumps into the air. The colonel inside bounces up with it and his head hits the ceiling. This is Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist. And this one journey, will change his life. Now I'm not going to give away anything, well, I'll try not to. But the end, yes, the end. I would have never guessed that fate would do that to him. I'm sorry, I'm going off topic.

Roy's head bangs up against the low ceiling in the car, he mutters out some swear words while rubbing the bump on his head.

The driver, Lieutenant Havoc, attempts to start a conversation to cheer up the mode, "Colonel Mustang, it's very unlike you to swear like that."

The Japanese man continues to rub his head as the car plows over some more bumps, "It was an outburst."

He shifts around in his seat uncomfortably. He gets used to the scene; legs crossed, hands on top of his knee, staring out the window at the yellow canvas with blue paint perfectly cut at the horizon. He could get used to something like this easily, a little too easily.

"Are you nervous? I mean, only because this is the first effort someone in the military trying to meet a non-violent agreement with the Ishbalites." The lieutenant keeps his eyes forward on the road, his cigarette rolls over to the other corner of his mouth, not lit.

But what kind of question was that? Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist, scared of some third world people? Never! But trying to make a deal with these people? He wouldn't admit it, but maybe. This thing is easier said than done.

His black eyes scan the desert's area. "I'm not nervous," he spoke to the landscape. So that much was half true. Every time Havoc mentions it to him, he grows more tense near the shoulders. He could feel his muscles knot themselves up in a panic. I go to sit next to him in the car, Mustang shakes from the sudden chill in the car.

**~A CONVERSATION~**

"**Did you turn the AC on, Havoc?"**

"**No, why?"**

"**Is it cold in here?"**

"**What's wrong with you?"**

"**Nothing, what's wrong with you?"**

Yes, he was stressed now. To be honest, the colonel didn't know why the military wanted to kill off all the Ishbalites. Sure, they might know how to make the Philosopher's Stone, but wouldn't you want to keep them alive so you could get the information from them? Can't the military and the Ishballites make a deal? Like, information about the Philosopher's Stone for protection? He guessed that it would be to easy, anything that would be too easy in life would never happen. Things like that would only exist in fantasies.

Roy's mind raced with insane ideas that could possibly work if he could slip from the militaries hands. I mean, he managed to do it with Marco and wasn't even punished for that. Now the colonel was thinking.

He could stay with the community to protect them from bad people, or racist people. He could help more than ever because he thought like the military: the next move, where they wouldn't look, they could even be a couple of steps ahead! But then again, he'd be only be able to offer if there was a giant distraction. Plus, he wasn't so willing to give up because he wanted another promotion. But then again, the military sent him to go warn the Ishbalites, not give them a peace treaty. They wanted these people dead, which Roy didn't understand why. Actually, no one did except for the Fuhrer.

Mustang smiles at the great, ingenious idea he just processed through his golden mind. He closes his eyes to envision the success and half laughs, a faint smile painted on his face.

"Havoc?"

"Yes," he replies.

"What would you do without me?"

The lieutenant looks at him using his review mirror. His face is swept with fear quickly, "I don't like that devilish look on your face. What's your insane idea this time?"

**~A TIME~**

**Let me make this simple:**

**Havoc had a girlfriend.**

**The girlfriend went to the movies with Mustang.**

**Havoc was melancholic and Mustang thought this would effect his work.**

**A mission was assigned to find the lieutenant a girlfriend**

**And he ended up at Armstrong's.**

**Let's make this part even less complex:**

**He was then dumped...again. It was a long day.**

"What are you talking about," Mustang acted like he has never had a "great" idea before. He thought he was practically good at everything, and lying was on his list of many things.

"You had that look when you told everyone to look for a girlfriend and I was sent to Major Armstrong's place."

"Oh yes, I remember that day quiet vividly. Where that cute girl rejected you because she likes men like her brother.

"Yes. I also remember that was the day where you forced everyone to dig because there was a bone on military property and it turned out it was a stupid dog that brought bones next to the warehouses."

Roy catapults himself at the lieutenant and wraps his hands around his neck tightly.

The car panics, racing from side to side.

Mustang shoves Havoc out of the way and takes the steering-wheel away from him. Just as easy as taking a piece of candy from a baby. He puts his foot all the way down to the floor and the car sprints full speed ahead.

All the other cars follow his lead.

"What are you doing? Killing us all?" Havoc continues to yell at the colonel, his cigarette flies to the dashboard. He picks it back up and places it back in between his teeth. It was already chewed enough, but his teeth thought it could squeeze some more of something out, maybe some more flavor. He just wanted to torture the object just a hint longer.

The colonel grasps the wheel a little tighter, straining the wrinkle of his white gloves. If that wheel were a person, it would've most likely suffocated. "I'm getting anxious, I can't sit in this friging car any longer!" His right hand flies from the steering-wheel and smacks Havoc across the face. He turns his attention back to the evenly-layered sand in front of him, his shoulders relaxing a bit.

Havoc sat there with a dumbfounded face, "What the hell was that for?"

Mustang sighs.

For that was his reply.

The village of Ishbal was coming into sight.

The colonel's black eyes dilated with pure excitement.

His smile grew deviously large.

Hopefully, there will be a distraction on his good side so his new plan could unfold. More than likely, unfold faster than slower.

He slams on the breaks, making the airbags rush out of their assigned positions and accidentally smashing into roy and havoc's faces.

Roy rushes out of the car to observe the place.

It wasn't in shambles, though he thought they were in Ishbal.

There were tents set up

People were thriving the "streets"

Children were playing

All the Ishbalites stopped in there tracks and halted their chores to stare at their company. All their faces burned bright with anger at the sight of the military and the thought of another war.

As the whole military exited their cars and became organized in neat lines with their guns by their sides behind Mustang, the Ishbalites huddled in a crowd blanketed with murmurs, confusion, and rage. They stood cautiously, about a hundred feet away from the colonel.

He clasps his hands behind his back and straightens his posture. Roy takes a deep breath and makes the Fuhrer's message loud and clear, "This is a message form the military's Fuhrer himself: 'All people in an Ishbal village must reveal the Ishbal secret to military authorities at once. If this does not happen in an orderly, peaceful manor, like expected, then the people will become imprisoned or killed.' Once again, this is a message from the Fuhrer, not me. Now does anyone want to step forward to tell me what this secret is?" In a matter of fact, he already knew that it was the Philosopher's Stone. He just needed the information. The simple fact that a threat was hovering over these people's head might not help the fact either.

The crowd shifts to part in the middle, like a dog bouncing his way through a field of wheat. A young woman squeezes out of the crowd and stands bellicose towards Mustang.

The colonel smirks at her with flirtatious eyes. I can guess he hasn't changed much sense my death.

Oh how he could tell she was different from any other girl he's flirted with. Very, very different. Her dress was all roses.

Her top was two, giant rose petals that criss-cross to look almost like a sports-bra.

The skirt was a series of soft petals with ends that curve at the middle of her muscular thighs.

Her waist was being hugged by thorny stems with a giant rose acting as a bow.

She has bracelets of thorns around her wrists and ankles.

Her eyes are the most different; one a red, a red as bright as freshly spread blood and one green, a green as bright as green grass on a bright, cloudless summers day. But both somehow burned with hurt and anger.

Her hair, yes, her long, flowing, slightly-curly, brown hair.

I could watch Mustang's eyes travel down her lovely hair that stretches down to her lower back.

**~A THOUGHT FROM ROY~**

**It's so...puffy.**

**It's so...distracting.**

**Yes!**

**Distracting: just what is needed.**

**But she's only turning _me _on, not the military.**

**Why does she have to be so hot!**

The young woman stares him down, thinking that he would shrink until he disappeared. But all she got was a flick of the eyebrow and gleaming teeth that seeped through a smirk. Her cheeks turned slightly rosy, but not to the extent Roy wanted her to.

"Why are you here," she snaps at the military. "Are you here to kill us all again for no apparent reason?"

All the soldiers take their guns out and aim at the innocent Ishbalites. Mustang holds his arm out perpendicular to him; a signal to hold fire. He takes a couple of steps forward and the whole crowd shifts back, but the girl doesn't. She stood there, like her feet are buried under cement.

Roy moved forward until he was only half a foot away from the girl. His plan could unfold any second.

"Listen and hear me out," the colonel begins. "In my job, the military, we get orders. Not explanations. I did ask why before we left and all I got was a dirty look as a reply. I'm assuming that it meant 'they have what we want.' I'm assuming that all humans strive for what your people obtain. So I'm assuming you know what I'm talking about. Yes?"

Her eyes widen with what seems to be a concoction of many emotions. She knew what he was talking about, but she also knew that she would get punished if she even referred to it with stupid hand-jesters.

**~ABOUT THIS GIRL~**

**Just so you humans know,**

**Her name is Rosa**

**She was stripped of her last name because her father, **

**Her father thinks she's a pimple on the family tree.**

**Her nickname is "demon"**

**She went against the Ishbal religion**

**And practiced the Great Art, in which she is the Thorn Alchemist.**

**She never had the chance to be a child,**

**For her father was busy moaning over the death of her mother's death**

**And she had to take care of her three brothers.**

**She has an arranged marriage**

**In which she hates the man, just a hint abusive...**

**I'm being sarcastic, that's all he is to her: a torture device.**

She opened her mouth, she wanted to answer Roy, but she couldn't. All the words collided in her throat and stayed in her voice box.

"If you tell me," Roy spoke with a soft, reassuring voice, then I might be able to save your people."

Her eyes wandered to the ground and her expression became more melancholic. "I was told not to tell anyone."

The colonel already had the idea that it was the Philosopher's Stone, but he didn't want to sound crazy or anything silly like that. "Please tell me."

She shakes her head and sheepishly moves backward to blend in with the crowd. "I won't tell you anyways, no matter how much you threaten me. I know that the military will use it against us to get the job done quicker. You'll exterminate all of us, and I'm not willing to give you the information."

"Wait! You have the actual Stone!" Mustang reacts to his thoughts rather harshly. He grabs her shoulders and drags her back to where she was before, in the center of reality. "Where is it?"

The Ishbalites go wild. Not like the raging kind that would charge at them to save a fellow person, the kind that thrashes insults at the innocent person that's in trouble and encourages violence. "Kill that demon!" "Choke her! Choke her to death!" "Bring her back from where she came from!" The rude comments hit her like a flood.

Her body language shows anger building up, but her eyes clearly reflect sadness and are glazed with tears. She whispered to Mustang, wanting to get some weight off her already-stressed life, "It's against our religion to practice alchemy, but that's the only hope we have of surviving any of this." She claps her hands together and shoves them on the colonel's chest. Everything glowed bright green to the point where I couldn't see them through the concentrated, sickly green.

The ground trembled furiously.

Giant, thick stems shot up from out of the ground. Each of the thorns as big as Mustang's head and the circumference of the stem being larger than his body's width. The stems threw him up into the air, then braided around his body about sixty yards off the ground.

Rosa gazed up at the colonel as giant roses blossom above his black hair.

Mustang laughs with and insane tone to it. The sound almost as if you could lick it,

The taste aluminum.

He stops to gaze down at the ground, "Let me tell you a little secret of mine, darling. It's only two words: Life sucks! So, you ask what the point of something that sucks so friging much? No one actually knows, but there are theories to this thing we call 'life.' Mine is simple: we're animals. And why did Mother Nature create animals: who the frick knows. But what's our soul-purpose in life: reproduction. Yes, human are animals.

"Yet, we can't even do the simple task at hand because we get bored in the process of getting there. So what do humans do when we get bored or jealous or angry? We fight, destroy, decimate anything and everything we set our eyes on. This world, as we see it is a reality, an imperfection. And what we hope the world will one day become, a fantasy, a perfection. Yet, everything has it's flaws. And the things that don't have flaws will die off sooner than you want it too. Anything that is perfect will die off in a flash of an eye because people are selfish animals who only want to share it within themselves." He flashes a settle smile at the girl to brighten up the moment a little. He looks down at her, his cheeks turning slightly rosy. "By the way, I must say before I forget, which I doubt I would, but this is an exquisite view up here! I get a great view of you. What you have are a really nice pair of ––––."

The girl claps her hands together to summon up another thick stem from the ground. It is hurtled as Mustang and he gets smacked across the face to leave a giant bruise.

The contact of the stem hitting his face made an incredible noise, almost like a piece of meat being slapped up against a wall in a child's cartoon.

The flower stem disintegrates within the next couple of seconds.

She smirks back up at him, flicking her bangs out of her eyes with a jerk of the head. "That's super flattering of you to give me such a compliment," she said, "but I'm looking for someone who will love me and my people. The ones who don't _kill_ my people."

"I wasn't going to kill them," he snaps back at her. "You know, not many people can make me angry! Which is only Havoc at the moment!"

You can hear him gasp in the background, "No? Really," he says sarcastically, "I never would've guessed!"

"Shut up," Mustang shouts at him. He turns his attention back to Rosa, "But I guess I can add a new one onto my list." He snaps his fingers and lets all the monstrous flowers catch aflame.

The woman turns around to face the people of Ishbal, "Will you idiots listen to me for once and run while you have the chance!" She claps her hands and slams them on the ground. She piers behind her shoulder to check on her burning flowers: They're black and turning into ash. Mustang is already pushing them aside, they turn into a puff of dark-gray clouds.

The whole area is being circled by a green light. The light quickly outlined into three, stogy rows of tall, implausible-sized roses.

The colonel steps over the pile of soot he just created and rushes over to Rosa with an insane-smile plastered onto his face. He pins the girl to the wall of flower stems before she had time to react. He finally snaps and yells at the girl, more directed at her stubbornness than anything else, "Look here1 I don't care who or what you are! You can't just lock all these people in here like their wind-up toys in a toy-box!" He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath of reality. He knew he couldn't do that, it's not good manors. He takes a little step backward. "Don't get me wrong, you're a very beautiful and attractive young woman, almost a temptress if you will. But you are also stubborn down to the bone. I will offer you one thing. I am thinking that this whole 'war' thing is an excuse to kill more people needed for the Philosopher's Stone. So I'd like to stay here for a while to prove to Central that you're people are nice people and deserve to stay in today's society. I would also like to find out more about your culture as an excuse to stay here and protect your people. This is an out-stretched attempt for me to save your people. I don't like killing, especially if it is the act of murder because my best friend, I believe, was murdered. So I beg you," he paused for a second to raise his hand up and gently places it on the women's neck, "let me go back to the station, convince them to let me stay here, and come back. And after that moment on, I promise you and your people won't see us ever again."

Roy slides his hand slowly to her blushing cheek, almost as if he were scared to touch her skin because it was too soft and would break easily.

Her pupils turned to slits and she lost her breath, "Your hands," she whispers as her eyes flutter shut, "your hands are so warm. Warm and comforting, not cold and soulless like everyone else's. It's like it has heart, a soul."

Roy relaxes some, "You mean I have a heart and a soul. I have one because I'm not a old-blooded murderer. Does that prove something to you?"

she breathes heavily, taking in the sweet scent of the moment. She rests her cheek on his hand. "I've heard of you, Flame Alchemist. I heard that you were quite a womanizer in Central City.

That word punched him right in the stomach: womanizer. Sure, he's been called that before, but it hurt him more coming from an actual woman.

His hand retreats to his side and his settled smile is cleaned from his face. "I have stole a couple of dates, yes. But I guess I'm...maybe it's because..." He couldn't seem to find the right words as he stared at her. His eyes became worried. Why was he such a womanizer? It never really occurred to him until now. But why would he care now? "Maybe it's because I'm undecided about what I want to do with my love life, but that might change." He lifted his worried eyes from the ground to bring them back to Rosa, "Who are you?"

"Rosa," she reaches for his hand and places it back on her cheek. She drifted off to her fantasy world again. The feeling, so great and warm, none like any other. "Rosa the Thorn Alchemist. I don't have a real last name."

He smiled at her while her eyes were closed, but it almost looked like it hurt. Like it was bruising him slowly, slowly and painfully. "You never answered my question. Do you think I'm a murderer any more? You know, since I've proven myself."

She shrugs her shoulders a little, "Maybe."

He laughs out loudly, "You are so stubborn!" Roy slips out his hand from her's and it hides in his pockets.

She looked up at him with her unique eyes, the sorrow and torture almost fully replaced with enlightenment and joy, "So you want to stay, huh?"

"I would. Just for a while. I'm thinking the military won't attack if a comrade is here doing some research. But I have to think of a secondary excuse because I'm thinking the Fuhrer won't be up to it at the first beat. Since I'm doing this," he goes to change the subject, "do you think you could let us out of this...cage?"

The woman rolls her eyes.

Mustang gives her a serious stare, he meant business.

She claps her hands and places one of them on the wall.

All the stems are sucked back into the ground like noodles.

All the military men surround her with their guns pointing at her head, their mouths ready to spit a bullet at her any second. Since they weren't trapped anymore, neither was their minds.

She smiles, "Shoot me now, I dare you. But if I do die soon or now," she starts, "at least I'll die knowing that one person likes me: the Flame Alchemist."

Mustang watches the scene from the back with a small smile, "How many times do I have to tell you idiots to hold fire?"

And so, Mustang had a plan, a theory about Ishbalites: not all of them were the same like everyone thinks, they're not all crazy, religious people. They have souls, they are humans.


	2. Chapter 2

~Chapter 2

"I would like to conduct a research project based off the Ishbalites to prove that they hide no further secrets and that they are peaceful people." Mustang stands at the Fuhrer's desk, waiting desperately for approval. But he doesn't dare show that he's scared that his leader will reject it, but he could smell it in the thick air.

"They are hiding secrets," he leans forward in interest, place his elbows on his oak desk and perching his chin on his closed fists.

The colonel blinks, changing his eyes to disapproval. "The only secret they would hide, and had hid, was the Philosopher's Stone. And the Stone is still a myth or legend, Fuhrer. But I would like to observe their culture. It would be useful for the databases incase we have another encounter with them."

The Fuhrer smirks, his cheeks making his eyes squint even further, which I thought was impossible. "So how do you want to do this, Colonel?"

I step next to my dear friend, but I forgot I can't encourage his decision because I'm only a mere ghost.

He shivers,

Then breathes out.

The carbon dioxide is visible and cold as it exits his mouth.

It wishes it had never left.

He spoke, more carbon dioxide was being forced to freeze, "I want to stay with the Ishbalites."

"Live with them!" The Fuhrer sounded surprised, "Wouldn't they kill you?"

He closed his eyes, slightly tilted his head down, and a smile was dancing on his lips, "Possibly. If I don't report back to you after a month, then I'm dead. All they want to do is protect each other; nothing more, nothing less."

"What about the Homonculi? That is your assignment at the moment."

"There was evidence that they came to Ishbal with the search of the Philosopher's Stone, but their motives with the Stone is unknown. Since the presences of the Stone is unknown also, I predict that the Homonculi will come back to Ishbal to receive the Stone at some point."

Ingenious, Roy, ingenious.

"Now why would they come back to Ishbal?"

"They know how to create it, that's why."

The Fuhrer smiled devilishly, he clearly wanted to get on Mustang's nerve and make him insult the people of Ishbal to prove the point that they are higher than them. Also, to prove that they're not worth anyone's time nor money.

Roy scans the items on the Fuhrer's desk to look for some inspiration. For some odd reason, there was a die next to the pencil holder that was sleeping soundly on his desk. "Sometimes, you just have to roll the dice."

The door flies open and Major Armstrong walks in with his hands full of Edward Elric's red hoody. He looked angry, yet, given-up.

His brother, Alphonse Elric, walks up besides the Major. His soul feeling uncomfortable in his armor. He seemed shy even though he knew Armstrong and was much large than him, but today just felt different. Instead of silk or cotton, it was burlap or steel wool.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Fuhrer," Armstrong said, "but these boys were causing trouble again in Ishbal. So we brought them back as soon as possible. We have no clue how they got there though." He sets Ed down onto the ground, his platform shoes pigeon-toed as they stood on top of the tiled floor. His position doesn't change much: arms crossed, face cringed with a temper tantrum almost spilling over the edge, and his golden eyes filled with flames.

Ed tilts his head further down, his chin touching his chest. The shadows cast over his face, "I already told you." He said calmly, "I was waiting for the Homonculi."

Roy takes a deep breath, inhaling the sweet scent of being correct in this conflict.

Ed continues to talk, for he had something else to say, "If it was for that lady with the stupid Roses, I would've had Lust on the ground in a heartbeat."

"Oh yes," the colonel smiles at the thought of her tangling the Fullmetal Alchemist with pretty flowers and hm being hopeless. And you couldn't forget about the sight of her being much taller than Ed. "I met her when I went to Ishbal the other day. I believe she called herself a 'Thorn Alchemist', but I can't seem to recall her real name. I remember her saying that she didn't have a last name though. She is quite a character; brave, a lot of courage in that girl. Loves to question higher authority. And even though people call her a 'demon' for going against their religion, she is still determined to protect them."

The Fuhrer turns his attention to Mustang, "Colonel Roy Mustang, I order you to research the Ishbalites and await the arrival of the Homonculi. If they come, kill them. Is this understood?"

Mustang salutes his leader with a grand smile, "Thank you, Fuhrer! I will not let you down!"

"With one exception." He looks over at the people behind the colonel, "Fullmetal, Armstrong. I want you to go along with Colonel Mustang to supervise him. But I still want you to take notes on the Ishbalites's culture. But since this is the colonel's idea, you only have to take as half as many notes as him."

Mustang gawks at the Fuhrer, "I don't need an escort! _I'm _Roy Mustang!"

The Fuhrer smiles with a little chuckle.

It was like nails on a chalkboard for everyone in the room.

"And that is why you need some escorts."

Roy silently stands defeated. His arms drop, his hands slip his thigh limply. He clutches his fist and snaps his fingers without noticing.

Fullmetal looks at the colonel with complete disgust, he really does hate Mustang as much as he says he does. Maybe even more. But sometimes he says things that are actually meaningful, or worth great value and lessons. And Ed, he admired those moments, but only briefly. And every time he's around Mustang and says that he's right and it turns out to be absolutely wrong, he doesn't like to admit things too easily. He's as stubborn as much as his hair is yellow.

The Fuhrer stands up and begins to exit the now uncomfortable room, "You leave tonight. There will be a car with a trunk full of notebooks, pencils, and necessities such as uniforms and water. I'll see you gentlemen in a month!" He salutes his goodbyes and closes the door behind him, leaving all the men in the room to process what had just happened.

**~A NOTE~**

**The air was thick,**

**Almost like melted butter being stirred.**

**The butter is not warm any more.**


	3. Chapter 3

~Chapter 3

Mustang angrily grips the steering-wheel in the military Jeep. He didn't need someone to look after him. For Pete's sake, he's the Flame Alchemist. THE FRIGING FLAME ALCHEMIST!

The rest of the scene was pretty obvious:

Ed moping in the back seat with his arms crossed and shoved up against the wall.

Al hunched over because the car was too small for him with his arm pushing his brother, unintentionally of course.

And then there was Armstrong,

In the passenger's seat,

All happy and sparkling with his pink diamonds, dancing joyfully around him...as usual.

So, the car trip was longer than expected, at least that's what it seemed.

The night was black when they arrived, but they had a full moon to light their way.

They survived the car trip to the Ishbalite's village. They pull up from the desert horizon and travel across the perfect canvas of sand. The whole town stops in their tracks to stare at the black speck coming towards them with a cloud of dust trailing behind them.

The girl dressed in her roses speaks to her friend, "Why was that dude flirting with you?"

Rosa said, "I told you, he wasn't flirting with me."

"It really seemed like it."

"Just drop the subject." She turns her head away with blushed cheeks. She looks up at the moon, her eyes glitter in the light of the moon and stars. "At least he was good looking, then it's one less embarrassment on my long list." She pauses, her ears pick up a sound. A humming sound. The purring of an engine. "Do you hear that?"

"What? Voices? Demons?" Her friend teases her.

"Shut up! I'm not possessed!" Her red and green eyes get distracted and wander off to look down in between the two lines of welly-organized tents. Her soul was being dragged down the path, her body followed. She stops her mindless walking at the out-skirts of the village.

Now that I look at her more carefully, she does seem like a woman my dear friend, Mustang, would want. She's so interesting and mysterious, but she had some dangerous notes meandering in her lurking shadow though. And it seemed like they were catching up wit her fast. Her name, ironically, Rosa. Yet, no last name. Her father just simply thinks she's a zit on their glorious family tree.

She watched the car break out of the black midnight sky. It reminds me of pen ink, when you scribble in one spot of a piece of paper for too long. That's what that night looked like. She stared at the car's eyes. She was paralyzed. The white light wrapped around her body to hug her tightly and securely. She remembered that feeling, just not in the same sense. It almost felt like the soothing hands of the Flame Alchemist.

The feeling took her body, but her soul came to rescue her.

The car was coming to her and slowed down to a stop.

It shined it's eyes on Rosa and couldn't bare to take them off.

It purred with pure delight.

Her puppy-like eyes could only make out the silhouettes of some people though. She thought three, maybe four people.

The driver hops out of the car. The colonel begins to walk towards Rosa, but she could only make out the blinding outline of his body as he stepped in front of the beaconing headlights.

She clapped her hands together and held them there as a warning. There should be a point at which she becomes enough of a problem for the military that they would all be informed by now.

Roy runs toward her with his hand reached outward. The blackness of his glove turned into white as it emerged out of the shadows and places the tips lightly on her dark, porcelain-smooth cheek. After the hand catches a breath or two, gasping for a little light after being drowned in the black, Roy follows through so he is now visible to Rosa.

He smiles his greetings to her, "I forgot you name, what was it again?"

Her eyes flutter closed and her cheeks became warm once again as she smiled.

A couple of teenage boys run from the back of the crowd and push their way to the front, "We found her, Father! We found her!"

Mustang repeats his question with a voice of soft cotton, "Please, tell me your name. I remember it was beautiful." Of course her name was beautiful to him, she deserved a man like Roy only if he wasn't such a womanizer.

The kids shout at her, but don't dare to step forward, "Don't tell him! Don't!"

She attempts to pry open her sleep-heavy eyelids, but only come open half way. She answers his question finally, but slightly dazed and still very confused, "Rosa. But, may I ask why you're here? Are you really going to stay?" She said quietly.

Roy could only smile to show off his perfect teeth, he couldn't possibly serious around her even though he wanted to be. "Just for a while and only for work. But I hope you don't mind that I brought some 'friends'." The rest of the people come out of the clown car and proceed to walk up to be just behind Colonel Mustang.

Edward smiles largely at the people, "Hello!" He didn't really have anything else to say, but he wanted to say something.

Two more men came from the back of the murmuring crowd to push and shove their way through to the front. One was much, much older than the other. The old one looks like he could've possibly been the young adult's father. They stopped at the front and gasped. It was like they were holding their breath. They didn't dare speak, they didn't dare move. They just gawked at the scene of the military man's hand on an Ishbalite woman's cheek.

Roy looked at the men, he couldn't grasp the picture that was about to happen. So he looked back at Rosa, her cheeks continued to grow pink. It was like a glob of ink dropped onto a napkin and it was sinking into the napkin. It spread, a contamination.

This was obviously too much for Rosa's abused heart to handle.

Roy hesitantly leans forward, his cheeks also rosy.

His lips come closer to her's.

He changes his mind and brushes his lips against her cheek.

He pauses, questioning himself.

He lifts his lips up to her ear.

He wanted to do something, say something. But he couldn't bring himself to motion. He's frozen with his fingers on her cheek that just barely touch, and he has stuttering lips next to her ear.

**~THOUGHT FROM ROSA~**

**Kiss me. **

**Heal my damaged heart, it needs something good.**

**This moment,**

**Let it last forever**

**And forever**

**And... **

"I'm," Roy slowly moves his head away, "I'm sorry."

This is the first time he actually said those words. The first time he actually meant them.

He takes a couple of steps backward to join his comrades. He clutches his hands behind his back and straightens his posture. I wiped his face clean, but I seemed to miss some spots on his cheeks.

He breathes out, shaking a little from the cold. I stand next to him for old-time's sake.

I watch the carbon freeze as it comes out of his mouth and dies.

"Central Military is being represented by I, Colonel Roy Mustang. Central Military is conducting a research project on your culture and people. So it is our duty to stay with you people for a month. Further information will be explained at a later date. Now, I would like to speak with your leader, if you don't mind."

Rosa stands there, staring at Roy. Her heart shattered and fell to the floor at his black boots.

He could tell, he cringed at the noise. But he didn't dare look back at her.

The three boys grab her arm and yank her back to the crowd, the comfortable huddle of Ishbalites.

The old man and the younger man finally gathered enough courage to take a step forward and speak.

The elderly one spoke first, "I am the leader. The High Priest for this community. Who are you? Were you brought here by the Devil?"

Mustang could only chuckle and smirk as he spoke, "No, High Priest, I don't recall ever making a deal with the Devil. Mister...?"

"Star."

"Mr. Star, I am just a mere man on this planet, just like you. I am only doing my job and I will not harm anyone. My leader, the Fuhrer, would wish for me and my comrades to stay with you and your people. But that is only by your permission as well."

The young man turned to Rosa with unfathomable eyes, "What in the name of the Sun God did you do?" He raised his hand up to eclipse the moonlight, Rosa's eyes no longer glitter with happiness bestowed from the moon, but they glitter from the tears wanting to escape from her eyes. She knew what was coming; her heart would be hurt again.

He brings his hand down to smack her, but something stopped the contact.

The man looked at his arm just above the woman's screaming, red hair. A white hand halted his action of abuse and white fingers wrap around the wrist of the man. The wrinkles on the closing fingers grow more extravagantly detailed as he grips tighter.

The young adult looks up at the person who stopped him: The Dog of the Military.

"It's not very gentlemen-like to hit a woman like that," Roy said. "Especially when it's not her fault." He lifts the man's arm up to get it away from Rosa. He places the arm back to his said.

The person looks at him in awe: nothing? He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe that someone would actually try to help, or even save, this demonic woman. He was furious that Roy had stopped the punishment.

"This woman is the Devil's woman! She must be punished and this is something for me to decide!" He throws a fist at the colonel's face, but the Flame Alchemist catches it like a regular baseball.

Mustang places the heal of his palm on his shoulder to push him backward while swingsing his leg to smash him in the back of the knee. The body had no option but to collapse and fall. He lays on his back so his hair could eat the dusty-sand below his body that holds his tears of failure.

Roy triumphantly places his boot on the mans stomach.

Mustang bends over and smiles devilishly next his head, "Here me out and hear me clearly, if you touch this woman, you're a dead man." He whispered. He steps away from the man and looks up to see the awe-struck faces and eyes glistening with fear. He adjusts himself to stand normal and fixes his collar briefly while clearing his throat. "I'm sorry." He managed to feign a smile, but nothing more was said.

Again, he's sorry. A new record if you just count that the new word was engraved into his mental dictionary and used twice in the same day, but he only meant it once and only once.


	4. Chapter 4

~Chapter 4

Roy and Ed followed behind Rosa, who is carrying a basket full of her blood red roses on top of her red hair. The two men squinted to see her because they were heading down the road towards the brightly smiling, morning sun, Extra tents and tables were being set up to start the "rare" market. It's only so rare because they always have to move around so much so often. The Ishalites had a weekly market outside of their own stores before the war started. The reason why they were doing this, Rosa told them, that they have been settled here for a little over a month and it seems safe enough to try to bring back an old tradition.

She set the basket down on a near by table after swerving through the tiny crowd that was slowly collecting people. She began to talk with the woman behind the table, her only friend.

Roy and Ed stand behind her, waiting for the terrible day, the day where they had to be together, to be over. They really didn't feel like talking to each other, but there was nothing else to do while they wait for Rosa to finish her trade.

"What are Al and Armstong supposed to do again?" Ed yawns with a wide stretch, attempting to hit Mustang in the face. He was really asking himself to start a conversation with himself. The last thing he wanted was one of Mustang's stupid remarks that he makes constently.

Roy smacks Ed's hand out of his face, turning very annoyed, "We told you about a hundred times already," he replies, "is this too much work for a little boy like you, Fullmetal one?"

Ed's eyes stir with war, he snaps at Roy, "Who are you calling chibi! You're just freakishly tall! Plus, I'm not a frickin' kid!" He smacks Roy across the face, leaving a bright hand mark on his cheek. The places where his joints connect on his auto-mail were visible on the mark

"Fullmetal! I wouldn't've cared if it was your regular hand, but not the auto-mail. Please, not the auto-mail!" He slapped Edward in the back very hard. He sounded hollow.

**~THE SITUATION~**

**A slap feast begun between the two immature boys. **

**Rosa noticed and glared at them.**

**They stopped, but she kept staring them down.**

**They were now embarrassed**

**And turned into small, innocent looking toddlers.**

Rosa turned back to apologize for them and continue her conversation. She takes a new basket that is filled to the top with vegetables.

Roy slapped Ed with his glove to make a cartoon-like sound effect. Roy thought he got the last word into this pointless fight and smiled proudly as Ed rubbed the fading pain on his face.

Rosa sighed as she took the last move, "Men, they never grow any older then a toddler."

The two shrunk into ants. Neither of them wanted to embarrass themselves in front of her, but for different reason.

Her friend nods in agreement, "They never change.

Rosa slides the baskets full of food off the table and into her arms.

Ed popped back up to normal size, confident and ready to live. He took the basket from Rosa in a gentle-manner, "Let me take that for you." He headed back to the tent.

"Oh, thank you," she said as she rushed to catch up with him.

Roy followed to be just a couple of steps behind her. The street was much more crowded than before, so he had to meander in and out of people to be able to move forward.

His eyes caught sight of a mysterious woman. No, not the "mysterious" you might think Roy would be thinking of. She wasn't an Ishbalite, more than anything, the opposite of one. She was wearing an evening gown that was draped with a burlap hoodie. It was a strange outfit for an Ishbalite, or even anyone. Her skin was pasty and her eyes were covered by the shadows of the hood.

A child came running up to her; wearing the same jacket. His long, black hair popped out of the front and his shorts and shirt were a second skin and black. He wore no shoes and one of his arms and legs were tan while the other limps were the same, ghost-like white of his face.

Roy tapped Rosa on the shoulder to get her attention, "Didn't you mention earlier that you needed to know everyone in the village?"

"Of course I do," she said, "I am the leader's daughter, no matter how many times my people say they hate me. Why do you ask?"

Roy pointed the two foreigners out.

The woman was entering a near by tent while the boy tugged on her dress, "Mommy, why can't I come in with you?"

She pried his fingers apart so he would let go of her dress, "I already told you, Wrath. This is adult work."

"I'm adult enough!" He pouts.

"No, you're still a child. Now go play with some other kids."

"Won't they ask who I am?"

"That's not important." She is eaten by the tent and the boy is left clueless on what to do. For some reason, he didn't want to give up his identity.

Rosa glances at the boy with the confused countenance. She looks back up at Roy, "No, I don't know those people." She walks over to the boy and squats to be eye level with hi.

Roy holds out a hand to stop her and stutters because the words collided in his throat before they even had a chance to come out. Roy had an idea that Wrath was a Homonculus.

Wrath looks at her, his eyes not covered in shadows. The pupils dilated slowly to eat up the color of his iris. He leans to the side to see Roy. To him, he was a threat, a man in a military suit out to kill him and steal what him and the others were looking for to return them back to humans.

Rosa turns his attention back to her.

Mustang sprints off into the large crowd of Ishbalites.

Rosa was a distraction for him, that's a good thing. But Roy had to find Ed because, even though he doubted it, he may need a back-up during the killing of the homonculus. He knew that he was one; the black second-skin, they all have that. And the cord-like object that runs down his paler leg, that was another hint towards him not being a human. The bad thing was that Rosa could be in danger being around him. She could get hurt and he would be hated even more for not preforming the task of protecting them, even though she wasn't really "one of them." The system there was a little complex and he didn't fully understand quite yet.

Roy finally reached the tent. Of course, he was impressed with himself; not even breaking a sweat, sprinting out in the desert and whatnot.

Mr. Star eyed him. He could sense something wrong.

**~A CONVERSATION~**

"**Have you seen Fullmetal?"**

"**The blond, little girl with the braided pony-tail?"**

"**Yeah, sure. Have you seen him-err-her?"**

"**I think so."**

"Oi," Ed pops out from underneath a cloth that separates the tent in half to be two rooms. He didn't hear anything that the colonel and the leader of the Ishbalites just said. He was all smiley and cheerfully. He saw the worried expression on Roy's face, "What's wrong with you, hot-shot?"

"The Homonculus. One of them are here, I'm not too sure about the other one, You're my back-up." Roy runs over to Ed.

"Who ever said I was gonna be your back-up?" Ed retorted.

But it was too late. Roy had him thrown over his shoulder like the boy was a towel. Roy dashes down the street. He attempts a stop, but almost falls over.

Rosa and the boy were gone! I wish I could help, I really do. I know where they are. That boy, he's a viscous one.

There was a yell, it was the little boy, "You stupid bitch!" Roy ran towards the yelling to find Rosa and Wrath out on the horizon.

Mustang dropped Edward to the sand and ran to the scen.

Rosa, Roy's beautiful Rosa, was tied up in compacted sand. Her hands are tied together. Wrath's hands and legs were in the sand, so he must've used alchemy to do this. "I never had a mother," Rosa said to the boy, "and I could care less!" The area lights up bright green and the ground shakes. Wrath gets shot up into the air and entangle with roses, thorns rapidly sprouting up a growing large.

Roy snapped his fingers to grasp the roses with fire. They screamed in pain, as did the boy. He was thrashing his limbs at the stems to get himself free, only to cut himself several times and let the fire drink the blood.

Wrath uses alchemy to transform his hands into thorns. He cuts through the stems that instantly turn into ash.

Ed gets up from the ground to run over to Rosa to assist her escape. He mutated his auto-mail to be a sword and cut through the sand like warm butter.

Wrath's body hits the ground hard. He gets back up and slashes at Roy, who steps to the side just in time to dodge the boy's move. He caught his clothes on the thorny hand. Roy snapped his fingers while throwing his hand across his body, The flame just missed Wrath, but ran after him as the fire ate up the air around it and grew bigger, snapping its fiery fangs at him.

Ed clapped his hands and slammed them on the ground while he protected Rosa. He made a giant, sand wall to make sure the fire didn't hit Rosa or him. But it was perfect timing because it catapulted Wrath up into the air.

Roy's heart was rapidly beating and time slowed down. The rhythm of his heart slowly progressed down to normal as Wrath began his descend towards the ground.

**~60 feet from the ground~**

Roy snapped his fingers in the direction of Wrath once again. The sparks flew from his fingers and lashed out at the boy. One scorched his his cheek and the friction made the sparks burst into flames. They creeped up his black hair and onto his scalp.

**~50 feet~**

Ed clapped his hands together and placed them on the wall of sand in front of him. The wall gets sucked up into the ground like a noodle and spat back out again to throw Ed up into the air. He was just above Wrath's falling body. He does a round-house kick at his stomach. But Wrath manages to grab his foot to make a chimera of his shoe and his hand. But Ed does a back flip to slide his foot out of the shoe and push Wrath down faster, he made himself jump to a higher altitude.

**~30 feet~**

Ed nonchalantly grabs his auto-mail foot and pulls is towards him to complete the flip and positions himself just right for a landing. He watched Wrath look at him with desperate-feelings in his eyes.

**~20 feet~**

Rosa concentrated on the desert floor as it glowed bright green. Stems weaved in and out of each other to make a basket-like pattern. The thorns thrashed out, larger than they usually are. It was a patch of land frosted with sins.

**~10 feet~**

His body drifts closer, closer, closer to the ground. His puppy, black eyes stare at death below as her peers over his shoulder. A thorn beacons his heart towards it.

It pierced his back, just missing his spine. The weight of his body was being called to by gravity. It wanted him closer to it, it wanted him to comes towards the ground. It missed his bare feet on the desert floor.

**~The last moments~**

The thorn still stood as the tip emerged from the top of his chest, blood was being thrown-up. It oozed out of his chest like a flood, his clothes turned heavy with the weight of the blood being soaked up. He coughed up red gems and they hit the floor, only to melt into a puddle and disappear.

Roy walked closer cautiously, but bellicose. He set fire to the stems, catching them on fire like candle-wicks.

Wrath screamed in pain as his skin burned to charcoal. He thrashed his arms and legs, only resulting in more blood-loss. Ember's fluttered like butterflies around him. They landed and crawled on his face, some settled and buried themselves into his skin, some rested on the ground a disappeared to leave a black blotch on the sand.

Roy carelessly snapped his fingers again and walked away from the boiling blood of Wrath.

Ed followed him and left Rosa. She didn't move, she couldn't. It wasn't in her personality to leave a dead person or to walk away like no one was killed. They wanted to kill the helpless, little boy. But Rosa won't want to have a part of this if she had known that he was going to die.

"The poor boy," she said to herself, "it should've been me."

She sat there for hours. Morning dripped into the after-noon and the after-noon drained into the evening. She stared at the spot that possesses death. The flame had died down to a single, floating ember.

Roy came along to check on her and stepped on it with his black boot to extinguish the last flame; another thing killed.

Rosa didn't take her eyes off that spot though. She continued to mindlessly stare at the spot. She looked with silent tears rolling down her cheek and they mourned with Wrath's soul.

Mustang knew she wasn't going to move, he could've assumed she was thinking about suicide by this point. That's how he was when he killed his first person. I remember him telling me about it with the saddest eyes and pale skin. But now it was a prat of his job.

He sat next to her, his legs crossed as he lays down beside her. He looked up at the sky with his dark eyes. There were two clouds. One was big, clumsily stumbling towards the smaller one. It tried many times to hug the other gray, small cloud, but it couldn't bring itself to do it.

I lay next to Roy and watch the clouds with him.

He breathed out clouds as he waited for Rosa to speak or leave.


	5. Chapter 5

~Chapter 5

"Does anyone have a frickin' fan!" Edward continues to complain about the scorching heat, desert heat.

Al sat in the shady corner where the kerosene lamp's light reached for him, but never set a finger on him. Then to his left was Armstrong, who sat in a the only chair in the Ishbal community while the Roy sat on the sandy floor, jotting down notes as fast as he could in his fifth tiny notebook. He reached the last page and stopped. His hand swiftly threw that notebook into the pile of four to his left, his black eyes venture over to the other corner to see giant columns of never-used notebooks, laughing at him.

Sweat runs down his hair and face as the night heat finally started to poke his buttons.

He takes off his military jacket, which didn't do much at a time like this, so he lifts off his black undershirt, soaking wet, and threw it over at Ed.

It slapped him in the face and complained even more. He went onto one of his little rants.

Being Roy, he ignored it and closed his eyes for a quick second.

His sweaty body shines in the dimming light of the kerosene lantern in the middle of the room. It looked like he was polished with floor wax.

He gets a salty taste of his own sweat from his drenched hair. His bangs stuck to his head and he wipes it to the side.

Mustang points a lazy finger at the three, "You guys have to do half of what I did. Each one, two and a half notebooks."

**~WHAT WENT DOWN~**

**The fire went to bed**

**Roy snaps his fingers and it awakes**

**Ed stops his rant after ten minutes**

**Rosa walks into the room**

**Right when Ed gets the idea to strip down to his boxers**

**Crickets chirp**

**The air turned to molasses**

She carries four plates, two in her hands and two balanced on her forearms. She awkwardly walks over to Armstrong first and he takes the first plate on her arm that was delicately standing. She then went to Al, then hesitantly glided over to Edward. She turns around to look towards Roy, who is nonchalantly taking off his boots, and freezes in her own foot-steps. Her cheeks instantly turn the brightest pink and her pupils dilate.

Roy looks up after throwing his boots at Edward and noticed that her feet were in cement and her eyes were affixed on him. "Am I making you feel uncomfortable, Rosa?"

She shakes her head to wash the thoughts out of her head and out her ears. "Uh...I don't think so." She sets the plate besides Mustang. A big meal of an apple and some roasted beets.

Roy picks it up and sets it on his lap. "Ya wanna eat with us tonight?"

"No thank you. I'm not allowed to." She walks to towards the other side of the tent to go to the divider.

"You're not? Where's your food?"

Rosa stops in her path once again with her hands on the sheet in front of her. "I'm not allowed to eat in the morning or night, only the after-noon and it's only an apple. It's part religious and part of the situation we're in right now."

Roy set his plate back on the ground, "I'll only eat if you eat. That's not very fair."

Al speaks from his isolated corner, "I'm not hungry at all. You can have my diner if you want to, Ms. Rosa."

She looks up to meet eyes with the metal armor in the shaded corner, they seem like endless pits. But she knows that there is a kind boy in there somewhere.

She begun to walk away again, but Roy grabbed her arms, wrapping his soft, white glove around her bicep.

She turns back to look at him, staring into his loving eyes, "Why is your community so mean to you?"

She slides her arm from his grip and genitally grabs his wrist to guide him to the back of the tent. They walked in between the Elric brothers and underneath the the back of the tent. They slip out into the desert and into the near distance.

**~BACK IN THE TENT~**

**Ed rants about Mustang throwing his boots into his face and the heat**

**He remembers that his brother is made of metal**

**Metal+Ed's stubborn mind=cold**

**The thought made sense to him,**

**he sits on his brother's lap without thinking**

"**Brother, it was warm today," Al starts, "and metal is a good conductor."**

**Ed felt his skin sunburn without the necessity of the sun**

**He got up as quickly as possible while patting his aching burns**

**He trampled over the kerosene lamp**

**They were wrapped in midnight's dark arms for the rest of the night**

The sand glowed blue in the full moon's light. They walked for five minutes straight without a single word gliding out into the settle breeze of night, being carried like a feather into the sky.

Rosa was the first to speak, "We were here at one point before the war started. I haven't been back since I was little, probably five. But my community of Ishballites, we've always been nomadic. But we'd stay for a lot longer in one spot than we do now. This is where we stayed the longest, it was my hometown and it's know in ruins."

"This isn't answering the question on why your people are so cruel to you." Roy stops in his steps, not moving until he got a sold answer. The wind becomes stronger, shoving loose sand up off the ground and onto the back of his legs, sticking to him like velcrow.

Rosa also stops and looks down. The sand was blowing away in front of her to uncover something. The wind becomes violent in just that area and clears away all the sand to show off a transmutation circle glowing brightly. It was like Hell was released and everything was blinding, except for a tiny, black box in the middle.

Roy looks in pure astonishment, he's never seen anything like it. He looks at her hands, the tops of her hands glow with the same pattern of the circle and the thorns that were bracelets now strangle her blood. They dribble down the indents of her hands and run off her fingers. He runs up next to her in amazement, his eyes as wide as saucers. "What is this?"

Rosa continues to stare at the circle on the floor, her eyes focused on the box in the middle. She begins to tell Roy the story behind the whole thing, "My mother was an alchemist like me with one difference: she was on the voyage for the Philosopher's Stone. She was an alchemist buy secret, very cryptic. She wanted to find all answers to eternal life, but died by the circle, eaten by truth. I was the one who came out when I heard the screaming. She was being grabbed by all these black arms coming from the ground. I ran over to help her, but her fingers skimmed across my hands and scarred them with the circle she died at to pass the horror onto me. So my village think that I'm possessed by a demon, they also believed this about my mom. So they all assumed that she gave it to me. She continues to stare at the black box in the middle, her green eye glowing on and off. "That in the middle, no one has ever gotten to that without dying. I wish to know what's in it, but I'm afraid no one will ever know."

She looked down at her feet, choking on her own words as they spilled out of her mouth and shattered on the floor, "Mom always wanted to find the secret behind the Philosopher's Stone, but was sent a message from Karma! Why did you do it Mom? Why did you leave me with this burden?" She starts to bawl. This was something bottled up in her ever since that day, she's been waitin gfor someone to tell for a little over a decade.

Her knees give out and she collapses to the ground with her face buried in the palms of her hands. "Why am I such a failure! I can't do any good! I can't even talk, for I only cry!"

Roy sat down next to her ad rubbed a soft hand on her bare back below her rose-petalled-top. "None of that is true, Rosa."

"You're just saying that to make me feel better!" Tears jog down her perfect skin and soak into the desert sand.

"That's not true, I swear." He wraps his arms around her, holding her closely to his body. He rests his forehead on her hairline and closes his eyelids softly to morph into a soon-to-be broken daydream. Roy savors the sweet tasting moment.

"Then name one good thing about me, Roy. Just one."

Roy easily thought of many things about her that he loved:

She was beautiful

Perfect skin

A golden personality

A "dreamy" body

Nice eyes

Everything about her was just unique!

But none of those things came out of his partly-opened mouth. He wanted to say something, but just couldn't bring himself to. She would figure out that he had a crush on her and that was the whole reason to why he came back. That was another thing, she was so intelligent! She was much, much smarter than he.

He never said a single word, his heart had taken over his thoughts and his lips were crawling to her forehead, but she pulled away in sadness and rage before he could kiss her.

"I told you!" She stood up with steaming tears and looked down at him. "You're a high-ranked millitary man staring at a low-class, homeless, ugly Ishaballite! I'm the lowest of the lowest in today's society and there's nothing good about me at all!" She runs away with tears trailing behind her.

Roy reaches out a desperate hand to stop her, but fails. He sat there, staring at the transmutation circle. The box was comfortable, it had its legs crossed and its hands neatly folded. It knew its secret inside its stomach was important and would only be know by it.

Roy stood up to stand with his feet only centimeters away. He attempted to grab it, but the transmutation circle shocked his hand when it was over the box. He pulled his hand back in pain. Mustang would have to think of a better plan in order to get that.

He looked down at his hot hand; the tips of his fingers were burnt. They cried for help and comfort, just like his beautiful Rosa.


End file.
